Eight o'clock. Pop, pop, pop. First fireworks of the night. They came from the Gospel Light church, established in 1990, Ethiopian time.

"Triple party," said Berhane, a security guard outside. "Ten years of the church, millennium, and a Happy New Year."

The year 2000, according to the country's unique, ancient calendar, was only a few hours away.

Dagne's creaking Lada taxi, built before his 19 years began, crept through the foggy streets, passing half-finished hotels and office blocks that lost the race to be ready for the party of the century.

In the Bosten barber shop, a man with long braided hair shaved a customer's head. Nearby, a shepherd in tattered clothes hissed and clapped his hands, cajoling his flock of sheep along the pavement. A group of young girls walked gaily up the street, arm in arm, passing old women in snow-white shawls.

An urchin approached the passenger window.

"Give me 1 birr [5p]. Tomorrow is the millennium."

Dagne cursed two drunk men staggering across the road. He turned on his car radio. The main concert of the night, an £80-a-head affair headlined by the US hip-hop band Black Eyed Peas, was being broadcast live.

"The music has started," the female radio announcer said in Amharic, English and French. "Happy Ethiopian New Year."

At the Tekeze Hotel a bonfire had been lit in the garden

Further along the group of twenty-something men had put together their own party zone. They had cordoned off a large rectangle on the roadside using yellow tape and strung up homemade Ethiopian flags and a large, oblong balloon fashioned from a refuse bag and daubed with red, green and yellow paint. Candles burned inside paper shades on the ground. Hunks of wood lay crisscrossed for a fire later in the night. On a banner, in neat Amharic script, one of the men had written: "We are glad to have reached the millennium."

A man in a blazer and dress shirt walked past and said, to nobody in particular: "2000 years since Jesus was born." Three foreign Rastafarians, perhaps on a pilgrimage to their holy land, talked animatedly close by.

Dagne pointed his Lada in the direction of a huge field where one of the capital's two open-air concerts was scheduled. A policeman stepped into road, ordering the occupants out of the car. He searched the boot, the engine compartment and, using the light from Dagne's mobile phone, the interior of the car. With a nod, the policeman's colleague gave Dagne a handful of nuts and a slip of paper authorizing him to drive on.

Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's voice crackled over the radio. He was welcoming other African leaders to the main concert hall. Paul Kagame of Rwanda, Sudan's Omar el Bashir, Abdullahi Yusuf of Somalia ...

At the free concert, Mr Meles's speech was still being broadcast, his face projected onto a giant screen. In front of it, on a field of thick grass laced with dew, stood thousands of revellers flanked by rows of policemen wearing trenchcoats, truncheons on their hips. On stage, troupes in traditional dress danced frantically in the coloured smoke, beating drums, twirling umbrellas, breathing steam. To the side lay a life-size papier-mache ostrich, its work done.

The crowd warmed up. Some clapped and began to sing. Others hoisted long, thin candles with thick wool wicks into the air. In the distance, fireworks popped. Ketema Teklu, from the Addis Ababa Fire Brigade, said: "We are ready."

Two hours to midnight. The steep black gates to the Holy Trinity cathedral, where former leader Haile Selassie lies interred, were locked. A man knelt, his red baseball cap beside him, lost in prayer. Inside, red, yellow and green lights illuminated the garden. The watchman opened the gates, offering a few visitors the chance to see the dark, grey cathedral up close. A guardian angel, carved in stone, stood proudly, her wings lit with pink flashing lights.

Past the national football stadium, packed with more revellers, and into the vast Meskel Square, adorned with statues of huge white doves. Chaos as several lanes of traffic converged.

Small bands of youths ran through the street, singing and slapping car bonnets as they went. A boy selling small flags looked into the taxi.

"Happy Christmas sir," he said.

In the square, people were dancing, their arms flailing in the air. A man with a denim jacket and a gammy leg gestured towards a billboard showing pictures of the country's athletics heroes.